Russian and Ukrainian officials meet in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday for two days of talks brokered by the United States — their first direct encounter since February — as President Donald Trump pushes for a broad peace deal to end a war now in its fifth year.
The discussions are scheduled to begin at around 06:30 GMT, officials in Kyiv said. The Trump administration has linked any settlement in Ukraine to a wider agreement on Europe’s future security, a shift that has unsettled some European governments, which fear being sidelined from decisions about their own continent.
European powers, including France, Germany and the European Commission, will send officials to Abu Dhabi, but Russia has made clear it does not want them to take part in the negotiations themselves. Instead, Ukrainian delegates will meet separately to brief their European allies on how the discussions are progressing.
Rustem Umerov, who heads the Ukrainian delegation, said on Monday that Kyiv was “doing everything to ensure that Europe is a participant in the diplomatic process”. The Russian delegation is again led by Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky, joined for the first time by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and senior military officer Yuri Zhigarlovsky.
Trump raised expectations last week after meeting privately at the White House with an envoy of President Vladimir Putin, predicting that a peace deal could emerge soon. US negotiators believe both Zelenskiy and Putin may be willing to compromise on territory, each ceding a little, a US official told Reuters. Under the proposed deal, Ukraine would get an end to the war, security guarantees and a roadmap to European Union membership.
That optimism is tempered by the positions the two sides have stated in public. There has been no sign that Putin is willing to drop his insistence that Ukraine surrender the whole of the eastern Donbas region before a deal can be struck, while President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has steadfastly refused to hand over land his forces have died defending. A senior Ukrainian official strongly denied that Kyiv would consider territorial concessions, saying the issue could be discussed only at leaders’ level and only alongside appropriate security guarantees.
On the eve of the talks, Zelenskiy said Ukraine’s leverage was increasing because of its recent battlefield performance, including retaking some territory in Donetsk. He said Russia was suffering “record losses” — a claim disputed by Moscow — and urged Washington to convince the Kremlin to end the war.
Trump has said the agreement he envisages would be bigger than Ukraine alone. “It’s going to be a big agreement, and it’s going to involve more than Ukraine … I could even say it might involve all of Europe,” he said last week. His comments prompted a backlash from some European officials, who said negotiations on European security needed the direct involvement of the governments concerned and that Russia should not be involved in setting European security policy.
Meanwhile the fighting continues. A truce on striking energy targets announced by Trump last month quickly fell apart: Ukraine has escalated its strikes on Russian oil refineries in recent weeks, while Moscow has pounded Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure and cities. G7 foreign ministers are also due to discuss Ukraine on Tuesday, the second day of their gathering in Paris, where Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha will join them.
Sources: Reuters, “Russia, Ukraine to meet for US-backed talks after Trump says broad deal possible” (https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-ukraine-meet-us-backed-talks-after-trump-says-broad-deal-possible-2026-11-10/) and “Russia and Ukraine showing flexibility on territory, US official says” (https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-ukraine-showing-flexibility-territory-us-official-says-2026-11-09/).
